Arcadia

(One of the New York Times Book Review's 100 Notable Books of 2012) In the fields of western New York State in the 1970s, a few dozen idealists set out to live off the land, founding a commune on the estate surrounding a decaying mansion called Arcadia House. This novel from the author of The Monsters of Templeton follows their romantic utopian dream from its hopeful start, through its heyday, to the time when their children suddenly must face the world beyond.

"Richly peopled and ambitious and oh, so lovely, Lauren Groff's Arcadia is one of the most moving and satisfying novels I've read in a long time. It's not possible to write any better without showing off."—Richard Russo

"Readers doomed to miss their subway stops will wish the cover also included a warning: 'This novel will swallow you whole.' Arcadia centers on Bit Stone, the kindhearted only child of Hannah and Abe Stone, two of the finest freaky parents in recent literary memory, who raise him in the western New York commune they helped found in the 1970s. In Arcadia, they intended to establish a home 'outside the evil of commerce' and 'a beacon to light up the world.' This experiment lasts until Bit is 14. The novel then abruptly leaps to post-9/11 New York City, where the Stones fled when Arcadia failed them.... Arcadia reminds us that 'when we lose the stories we have believed about ourselves, we are losing more than stories, we are losing ourselves'."—NYTBR